Isaac Deutscher
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Isaac Deutscher (3 April 1907 19 August 1967) was a
Polish writer, journalist and political activist who moved ger of Nazism and ... spreading panic in the Communist
to the United Kingdom at the outbreak of World War II.
He is best known as a biographer of Leon Trotsky and
Joseph Stalin and as a commentator on Soviet aairs.
His three-volume biography of Trotsky, in particular, was
highly inuential among the British New Left.[1]
1 Early life
Deutscher was born in Chrzanw, a town in the Galicia
region of Poland, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Em-
pire, into a family of religiously observant Jews. He stud-
ied with a Hasidic rebbe and was acclaimed as a prodigy
in the study of the Torah and the Talmud. By the time of
his bar mitzvah, however, he had lost his faith. He tested
God by eating non-kosher food at the grave of a tzadik
(holy person) on Yom Kippur. When nothing happened,
he became an atheist.
Deutscher rst attracted notice as a poet, when at 16 he
began publishing poems in Polish literary periodicals. His
verse, in Yiddish and Polish, concerned Jewish and Polish
mysticism, history and mythology, and he attempted to
bridge the gulf between Polish and Yiddish culture. He
also translated poetry from Hebrew, Latin, German, and
Yiddish into Polish.
Deutscher studied literature, history, and philosophy as
an extramural student at the Jagellonian University in
Krakw.[2] At 18 he left Krakw for Warsaw, where he
studied philosophy and economics and became a Marxist.
Around 1927, he joined the illegal Communist Party of
Poland (KPP) and became the editor of the partys un-
derground press.[2] In 1931, he toured the Soviet Union,
seeing the economic conditions under the rst Five Year
Plan. Here Moscow University and Minsk University of-
fered him posts as a professor of the history of socialism
and of Marxist theory. He declined these oers and re-
turned to his underground work in Poland.[2] On his re-
turn, Deutscher co-founded the rst anti-Stalinist group
in the Polish Communist Party, protesting the party line
that Nazism and Social Democracy were not antipodes
but twins.[2] This contradicted the then ocial Commu-
nist line, which saw social democrats as "social fascists",
over Europe, in which he urged the formation of a united
socialist-Communist front against Nazism. Deutscher
was expelled from the party for exaggerat[ing] the dan-
ranks.[2]
2 Move to Britain and journalism
(193947)
In April 1939, Deutscher left Poland for London as a cor-
respondent for a Polish-Jewish newspaper for which he
had worked as a proof reader for fourteen years.[2] This
move saved his life and paved the way for his future ca-
reer. He never returned to Poland and never saw any of
his family again. He became a British subject in 1949,
taking his oath of allegiance on 12 May 1949.[3]
In London, Deutscher worked as a correspondent for the
Polish newspaper, and for a while he joined the Trotskyist
Revolutionary Workers League.
When Germany occupied Poland in September 1939,
and his connection with his newspaper was severed, he
taught himself English and began writing for English
magazines.[2] He was soon a regular correspondent for the
leading weekly The Economist.[2] In 1940 he joined the
Polish Army in Scotland, but was interned as a dangerous
subversive.[2] Released in 1942, he joined the sta of The
Economist and became its expert on Soviet aairs and
military issues, and its chief European correspondent.[2]
He also wrote for The Observer as a roving European cor-
respondent under the pen-name Peregrine.[2]
He left journalism in 194647 to write books.[2]
Deutschers name (with the remark Sympathiser only)
subsequently appeared on Orwells list, a list of people
(many writers and journalists) which George Orwell pre-
pared in March 1949 for the Information Research De-
partment, a propaganda unit set up at the Foreign Oce
by the Labour government. Orwell considered the listed
people to have pro-communist leanings and therefore to
be inappropriate to write for the IRD.[4]
1
2 4
3 Biographer and academic (1948 4 In relation to Judaism and Zion-
1967) ism
Deutscher published his rst major work, Stalin, A Polit-
ical Biography in 1949. Deutscher was still a committed
Trotskyist, but in the book Deutscher gave Stalin what
he saw as his due for building a form of socialism in the
Soviet Union, even if it was, in Deutschers view, a per-
version of the vision of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky.
The Stalin biography made Deutscher a leading au-
thority on Soviet aairs and the Russian Revolution.
He followed it up with his most ambitious work, a
three-volume biography of Trotsky: The Prophet Armed
(1954), The Prophet Unarmed (1959) and The Prophet
Outcast (1963). These books were based on detailed
research into the Trotsky Archives at Harvard Univer-
sity. Much of the material contained in the third vol-
ume was previously unknown, since Trotskys widow,
Natalia Sedova, gave him access to the closed section of
the Archives. British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared
in 2006 that the trilogy made a very deep impression on
me and gave me a love of political biography for the rest
of my life.[5] Deutscher planned to conclude his series
with a study of Lenin, but Life of Lenin remained incom-
plete at the time of his death, partly due to a politically
motivated denial of a university position to Deutscher.[6]
As later revealed, when he was asked to evaluate the
academic credentials of Deutscher, Isaiah Berlin argued
against such a promotion, because of the profoundly pro-
communist militancy of the candidate.[7]
In the 1960s, the upsurge of left-wing sentiment that ac-
companied the Vietnam War made Deutscher a popu-
lar gure on university campuses in both Britain and the
United States. His Trotskyism had by then become a
form of Marxist humanism, although he never renounced
Trotsky. In 1965, he took part in the rst Teach-In and arms. The jumping man had no choice; yet to the
on Vietnam at the University of California, Berkeley,
where thousands of students listened to his indictment
of the Cold War.[2] He was G. M. Trevelyan Lecturer
at Cambridge University for 196667,[2] and also lec-
tured for six weeks at the State University of New York.[2]
In spring 1967 he guest lectured at New York Univer-
sity, Princeton, Harvard and Columbia.[2] The G. M.
Trevelyan Lectures, under the title The Unnished Rev-
olution, were published after his sudden and unexpected
death in Rome in 1967, where he went for an Italian TV
broadcast, a play about the fallen of Trotsky written and
directed by Marco Leto, starring Franco Parenti as Trot-
sky and Renzo Giovampietro as Stalin. A memorial prize
honouring him, called the Deutscher Memorial Prize, is
awarded annually to a book which exemplies the best
and most innovative new writing in or about the Marxist
tradition. Isaac Deutscher made the distinction between
classical Marxism and vulgar Marxism.[8]
IN RELATION TO JUDAISM AND ZIONISM
Despite being an atheist, Deutscher emphasised the im-
portance of his Jewish heritage. He coined the expression
"non-Jewish Jew" to apply to himself and other Jewish
humanists. Deutscher admired Elisha ben Abuyah, a
Jewish heretic of the 2nd century CE. But he had lit-
tle time for specically Jewish politics. In Warsaw, he
joined the Communist Party, not the Jewish Bund, whose
"Yiddishist" views he opposed.
His denition of his Jewishness was: Religion? I am
an atheist. Jewish nationalism? I am an internationalist.
In neither sense am I therefore a Jew. I am, however,
a Jew by force of my unconditional solidarity with the
persecuted and exterminated. I am a Jew because I feel
the pulse of Jewish history; because I should like to do
all I can to assure the real, not spurious, security and self-
respect of the Jews.[9]
Before World War II, Deutscher opposed Zionism as eco-
nomically retrograde and harmful to the cause of interna-
tional socialism, but in the aftermath of the Holocaust he
regretted his pre-war views, and argued a case for estab-
lishing Israel as a historic necessity to provide a home
for the surviving Jews of Europe. In the 1960s, he be-
came more critical of Israel for its failure to recognise
the dispossession of the Palestinians, and after the Six-
Day War of 1967 he demanded that Israel withdraw from
the occupied territories. This 'six-day wonder'", he com-
mented, this latest, all-too-easy triumph of Israeli arms
will be seen one day... to have been a disaster... for Israel
itself.[10]
His most famous statement regarding Israel is A man
once jumped from the top oor of a burning house in
which many members of his family had already perished.
He managed to save his life; but as he was falling he hit a
person standing down below and broke that persons legs
man with the broken limbs he was the cause of his misfor-
tune. If both behaved rationally, they would not become
enemies. The man who escaped from the blazing house,
having recovered, would have tried to help and console
the other suerer; and the latter might have realized that
he was the victim of circumstances over which neither of
them had control. But look what happens when these peo-
ple behave irrationally. The injured man blames the other
for his misery and swears to make him pay for it. The
other, afraid of the crippled mans revenge, insults him,
kicks him, and beats him up whenever they meet. The
kicked man again swears revenge and is again punched
and punished. The bitter enmity, so fortuitous at rst,
hardens and comes to overshadow the whole existence of
both men and to poison their minds.[11]
In The Israeli Arab War, June 1967 (1967), Deutscher,
a Marxist of Jewish origins whose next-of-kin died at
Auschwitz and whose relatives lived in Israel, wrote:

Still we must exercise our judgment and
must not allow it to be clouded by emotions
and memories, however deep or haunting. We
should not allow even invocations of Auschwitz
to blackmail us into supporting the wrong
cause. (Quoted in Prophets Outcast, Nation
Books, 2004, p. 184)
He believed,
To justify or condone Israels wars against
the Arabs is to render Israel a very bad ser-
vice indeed and to harm its own long-term in-
terest. Israels security, let me repeat, was not
enhanced by the wars of 1956 and 1967; it was
undermined and compromised by them. The
friends of Israel have in fact abetted Israel in
a ruinous course. (Quoted in Prophets Outcast,
Nation Books, 2004, p. 184)
5 Selected works
Stalin: a Political Biography (1949)
Soviet Trade Unions (1950)
Russia After Stalin (1953)
Russia, What Next? (1953)
The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 18791921 (1954)
Heretics and renegades: and other essays (1955)
Russia in transition, and other essays (1957)
The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky, 19211929 (1959)
Great contest: Russia and the West (1960)
The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 19291940 (1963)
Isaac Deutscher on the Israeli-Arab War: an inter-
view with the late Isaac Deutscher (1967)
The Unnished Revolution: Russia 19171967 (G.
M. Trevelyan lectures) (1967)
Non-Jewish Jew and other essays, London: OUP,
1968)
An Open Letter to Wadysaw Gomuka and the Cen-
tral Committee of the Polish Workers Party (1968)
Russia, China, and the West 19531966 (Edited by
Fred Halliday) (1970)
Marxism in our time, (Edited by Tamara Deutscher)
(London: Cape, 1972)
Marxism, Wars, and Revolutions: essays from four
decades (Edited by Tamara Deutscher) (1984)
3
6 See also
Deutscher Memorial Prize
7 References
[1] Neil Davidson, The prophet, his biographer and the
watchtower, International Socialism 104, 2004
[2] Tamara Deutscher (1968), Isaac Deutscher 1907
1967, Preface to The Non-Jewish Jew & Other Essays
[3] London Gazette 21 June 1949 https://www.thegazette.co.
uk/London/issue/38647/page/3062
[4] Orwells List by Timothy Garton Ash. The New York
Review of Books Volume 50, Number 14. 25 September
2003
[5] Cahal Milmo, The Independent, 3 March 2006, Blair re-
veals an unexpected inuence: Trotsky
[6] M Ignatie, Isaiah Berlin: A Life (London, 1998), pp 93,
235; cited in Neil Davidson, The prophet, his biographer
and the watchtower, International Socialism 104, 2004
[7] For this incident, see David Caute, Isaac & Isaiah: The
Covert Punishment of a Cold War Heretic (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2013).
[8] http://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1965/
marxism.htm
[9] Deutscher, Isaac. Who is a Jew?" In The Non-Jewish Jew
and Other Essays. Tamara Deutscher, ed. and Introduc-
tion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. P. 51.
[10] Deutscher, Isaac. An Interview: On the Israeli-Arab War.
New Left Review I/44 (JulyAugust 1967): 3045.
[11] Deutscher, Isaac. The Non-Jewish Jew and Other Essays.
London: Oxford University Press, pp 136137
8 Sources
Cli, Tony, The End of the Road: Isaac
Deutschers Capitulation to Stalinism, 1963.
Horowitz, David, Isaac Deutscher: The Man and his
work. London: Macdonald, 1971.
Labedz, Leopold Issac Deutscher: Historian,
Prophet, Biographer pages 3303 from Survey,
Volume 30, Issue # 12, March 1988.
Laqueur, Walter The Fate of the Revolution: Inter-
pretations of Soviet History from 1917 to the Present,
New York : Scribner, 1987 ISBN 0-684-18903-8.
Neil Davidson, The prophet, his biographer and the
watchtower, International Socialism 104, 2004.
4 10 EXTERNAL LINKS

9 Further reading
Bruce Robbins, The Red Emigrant, The Nation,
17 April 2017, pp. 2728, 3031. A sketch of the
life and thoughts of Isaac Deutscher, non-Jewish
Jew.

10 External links
Isaac Deutscher Archive at marxists.org
Russia in transition, Universities & Left Review,
1957
The Failure of Khrushchevism, Socialist Register,
1965
Maoism-Its Origins, Background and Outlook,
Socialist Register, 1964
Marxism in Our Time A Lecture given in 1965

The Tragedy of the Polish Communist Party, So-

cialist Register, 1982

The Lubitz TrotskyanaNet provides a biographi-

cal sketch and a selective bibliography of Isaac
Deutscher
Isaac Deutscher Speaks! (English) I still believe!":
Berkeley Anti-war Teach-in, 1965 this is a
YouTube recording of Deutschers speech at this
event (audio only)
 5

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